Showing posts with label Blogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogs. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
A quick hit
Let me just say that I am against fake solutions like this, and I fully expect FearLessVKto weigh in the not so distant future. Unless of course she's busy actually living her life and all.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
On Bikes (again)
My friend Anthony has a great blog about his travels around the world studying bicycle cultures. I find it truly amazing that he gets to spend a year doing such a cool and admirable goal. I don't say lucky b/c I know that kid busts his ass, and works hard to do things like this. I just felt like more people should be pointed in his blogs direction.
One quick thought on one of his recent posts. It seems in the city of Memphis we travel an average of 26 miles by car a day. Now, I have not read all of this report, but I gotta say only traveling 26 miles a day in this city is not a very hard* thing to accomplish in my humble opinion. Now I am sure, that is part of his point, but I question how we are ever going to drop that number when the largest employer in the city has offices that are no where near the city center.
*I usually shatter this number with ease and style.
One quick thought on one of his recent posts. It seems in the city of Memphis we travel an average of 26 miles by car a day. Now, I have not read all of this report, but I gotta say only traveling 26 miles a day in this city is not a very hard* thing to accomplish in my humble opinion. Now I am sure, that is part of his point, but I question how we are ever going to drop that number when the largest employer in the city has offices that are no where near the city center.
*I usually shatter this number with ease and style.
Monday, August 24, 2009
On Copyrights
I stopped by one of my favorite blogs (The Dish) today, and noticed a fairly interesting discussion going on about copyright laws. The issues being discussed seem to stem mostly around the idea of fair use, and the duplication of media.
I have for the last ten years or so been on the side of more strict protection of copyright laws. A long time ago a friend got me to switch all of my computers over to Linux with this very compelling argument. "Do you really want to keep stealing software?"* Now it isn't that I was unaware of this concept, but it was something I had been doing for so long that I didn't even think about it anymore. It was simply part of my process. I started doing it when I was 12 (and certainly not thinking about fair use or copyright), and just continued doing it without a second thought.
My friends point really struck home, and got me to change the way in which I approached several other things. Most notable the way in which I consume music. Now I got out of the stealing MP3 game back when you had to long onto someone's BBS to get anything. I have never used Napster, Kaza, torrents, or any other form to get music.**
Now with that said I have long been a huge fan of making tapes/cd's/play lists for people of music they have not heard. I have gotten into countless band because of this practice. If not for a bus ride to school in 1994 when a friend let me hear Sky Scrapper by Bad Religion my taste in music could have easily gone a different way.
I suppose what I wonder about is where do others draw the line. If I had to guess I am a bit more draconian in my beliefs about these types of things then most of the people I know, but it's really hard to say.
Now one last thing I want to address real quick. I saw a few people trying to make the argument that the reason people pirate so often is the price. While I feel that is true with really expensive pieces of software and DVD box sets, I don't feel it's true with music. I am not sure what the average cost of a CD is anymore, but the average LP tends to run me about 12 bucks for a single LP and around 15-18 bucks for a double LP.*** Does anyone really believe these prices are super out of line. Is 99 cents really to much to pay for a single song? How much do people think these things should cost? They sure as hell shouldn't be free. That was someone's hard work and time that went into making that record. If people want to give it away for free, good on them, but I think your nuts if you expect it to be free.
*Note there a ton of technical reasons I also use Linux. It isn't a 100% altruistic love of not stealing. I am a fan of it as a technical platform first and foremost.
**I do have some music on my iPod that I have gotten off of friends computers. This was only done in cases where I was unable to buy the music on the format of my choosing. This isn't right. I just felt like full disclouser was in order.
***I talking about indie labels here. I don't really buy to much stuff on major labels. Not that it can't be good but that I simply don't know of any bands on major labels that I enjoy that are still together.
I have for the last ten years or so been on the side of more strict protection of copyright laws. A long time ago a friend got me to switch all of my computers over to Linux with this very compelling argument. "Do you really want to keep stealing software?"* Now it isn't that I was unaware of this concept, but it was something I had been doing for so long that I didn't even think about it anymore. It was simply part of my process. I started doing it when I was 12 (and certainly not thinking about fair use or copyright), and just continued doing it without a second thought.
My friends point really struck home, and got me to change the way in which I approached several other things. Most notable the way in which I consume music. Now I got out of the stealing MP3 game back when you had to long onto someone's BBS to get anything. I have never used Napster, Kaza, torrents, or any other form to get music.**
Now with that said I have long been a huge fan of making tapes/cd's/play lists for people of music they have not heard. I have gotten into countless band because of this practice. If not for a bus ride to school in 1994 when a friend let me hear Sky Scrapper by Bad Religion my taste in music could have easily gone a different way.
I suppose what I wonder about is where do others draw the line. If I had to guess I am a bit more draconian in my beliefs about these types of things then most of the people I know, but it's really hard to say.
Now one last thing I want to address real quick. I saw a few people trying to make the argument that the reason people pirate so often is the price. While I feel that is true with really expensive pieces of software and DVD box sets, I don't feel it's true with music. I am not sure what the average cost of a CD is anymore, but the average LP tends to run me about 12 bucks for a single LP and around 15-18 bucks for a double LP.*** Does anyone really believe these prices are super out of line. Is 99 cents really to much to pay for a single song? How much do people think these things should cost? They sure as hell shouldn't be free. That was someone's hard work and time that went into making that record. If people want to give it away for free, good on them, but I think your nuts if you expect it to be free.
*Note there a ton of technical reasons I also use Linux. It isn't a 100% altruistic love of not stealing. I am a fan of it as a technical platform first and foremost.
**I do have some music on my iPod that I have gotten off of friends computers. This was only done in cases where I was unable to buy the music on the format of my choosing. This isn't right. I just felt like full disclouser was in order.
***I talking about indie labels here. I don't really buy to much stuff on major labels. Not that it can't be good but that I simply don't know of any bands on major labels that I enjoy that are still together.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
